A Century of Spies: Intelligence in the Twentieth Century

From tsarist Russia and the earliest days of the British Secret Service to the crises and uncertainties of the post–Cold War world, National Security Archive senior fellow Jeffrey Richelson offers this wide-ranging survey of the role of modern intelligence around the globe. From spies and secret agents to high-tech communications and surveillance, he provides in-depth coverage of important spy operations, the role of intelligence in past world wars, and a full overview of intelligence during the Cold War, from superpower espionage and spy scandals to covert action and secret wars. Here too are vivid portraits of spymasters, spies, and defectors, including Sidney Reilly, Herbert Yardley, Kim Philby, James Angleton, Markus Wolf, Reinhard Gehlen, Vitaly Yurchenko, and Jonathan Pollard, while a final chapter probes the still-evolving role of intelligence work from the new weapons of the Gulf War to the surprising involvement of the French government in industrial espionage.

"Intelligence, according to Richelson, played a crucial role in defeating Hitler, preventing the Cold War from turning into a nuclear war and keeping the superpower arms race from getting completely out of hand. His comprehensive survey explores the impact of spies and their special technology on world events in this century, showing how intelligence gathering and espionage have become a multibillion-dollar enterprise.... This decade-by-decade review of key events and breakthroughs in intelligence and espionage is masterly."—Publishers Weekly